these days blender is incredibly powerful, especially because they are adding features after features, while this is a good thing it can be overwhelming for new blender artists, there hundreds of buttons, lots of different pie menus, context menus, different editors, work spaces and more.

to add to the confusion, sometimes you have to go through different workspaces, use different tools just to do one thing.

but what if there was a better way, where everything is just easy, everything is intuitive and right there, one click away, one button away, what if there where tools that can sort out the menus, the buttons, editors, combine them and merge them into one button.

Enter Addons, addons are meant to be the easier alternative to the convoluted workflow and default workflow of blender, but finding the right addon among millions that have been published on blendermaket, gumroad, github and other sites is as confusing as using blender.

so today, am going to untangle the webs for you, show you the best addons available and what they are best at, to help you make better renders in an easy an headache free process.

One thing you need to understand is that, there are 3 main types of addons, tools, generators and libraries.

lets look at tools first, tools are addons that improve or build upon blenders core functionality, these are addons that make things like modeling easier, uv editing fun or simply bring operators and tools from other 3d applications into blender, they can also sometimes combine two or more built in tools to make one so that you dont have to click several buttons to do something.

the second category is generators, these are mostly procedural generators that specialize at a specific thing, like generating roads, house, cities, mountains, landscapes, bridges, rivers and more.

then you have libraries, libraries are a collection of 3d assets made by other artists that you can use in your projects, think of cars, trees, vegetations, asset packs and more.

Now days most addons are a mixture of the three, they are tools, generators and libraries at the same time, but for the sake of simplicity i will still separate them according to the mentioned categories

Tools

there are so many tools so we are going to look at the best ones that you can use right away,

Zen Dock V1.0.2

the first tool is zen dock, blender has like 20 different editors, like the shader editor, uv editor, properties, asset browser, 3d view, outliner and more, you dont need to be seeing all of them at once when working but when you need them you want to access them quickly, Zen dock is a tool that lets you dock these editors in your view port for easy access and you can choose what to dock.

Boxcutter 7.2.0 : Kragehul

there is a type of modeling in 3d called hardsurface modeling, look it up, if thats what you do or if thats what you want to do, don’t try it without a tool like boxcutter, trust me bro

Zen Uv V4.4.0

All other applications like maya, 3ds max, cinema 4d have better uv tools than blender, zen uv just copies most of that functionality and brings it to blender, if uv unwrapping has been stressing you, its not you its blender get zen uv.

Light Wrangler

like i said some tools just combine multiple buttons to create one button that does what all the others do in one go to save you time, light wrangler is that tool, you need a light to point somewhere, just like the spot and the addon will add the light, rotate it and point it there, it also has other functions you can see them on the download page links in the description.

Retopoflow

3ds max has a great retopo tool blender doesn’t, retopo flow brings the same feature and adds its own twist so you have a retopo tool in blender simple as that.

Rbdlab

if you are breaking staff, fracturing or making rigid body simulations, rbdlab is what you get, it handles the fracturing, destroying, simulation and everything for vfx, i know am over simplifying what it does but we have a long list to cover.

Auto-Rig Pro

auto rig pro is the most selling addon on the market, and for a good reason, you can rig any character by just draging points to mark the joints of your mesh and click go, to simplify a process that would take hundreds of steps and many many hours.

Blendshop

the next addon we have is blendshop and reduces the number of editors you have to worry about by one, the so many editors in blender not all of them are necessary to learn or have, one of those is the compositor, dont get me wrong, if you are doing complicated compositing you will need it, for everything else, blendshop creates a more compacted form of the compositor that you can access in your viewport at anytime.

Generators

the next categories of addons we are going to look at are generators, within generators you will see generators that you can just drag and drop into your seen and generators that come with there own addons,

Physical Starlight And Atmosphere

the first addon in our generators is the physical starlight and atmosphere addon, and what it does is in the name, you want a sky with animated clouds, sun, stars, fog, god rays, night time, cloudy, and all types of settings, sunset, dawn, noon, this is the tool to have.

Flip Fluids

blender comes with its own fluid simulator but like many have found, it does not do shit, flip fluids on the other hand, generates better fluids, its faster creates better splashes, bubbles and the fluids are more realistic.

True-Terrain 5

the true power of generators can be seen in addons like true terrain, you can create entire landscapes with mountains, trees, grass, rocks, clifs, lakes, rivers and more with just a single addon

Real Damage – Realistic Internal Damage

our next addon demostrates the true difference between generators and addons, unlike addons that are usually general purpose, generators do something specific like this realistic internal damage, its only good at one job and boy is it good, if you need to add damage to objects this is what you pull out, you can add rebar, edge damage, internal structure and more.

Population – Human Crowd Simulation

generators dont just generate meshes and startic objects, they can also generate animation, like this next addon and generator called population, these addon can generate realistic crowds with animation all withing your viewport, its also a library with a collection of animated characters, standing, seating, walking, workingout, talking and more, so if you dont want a crowd, you can just add individual animated characters in your scenes to make the scenes look more alive.

Geo-Swarm

like i said in the begining generators are great at one specific thing, this next addon geo-swarm can what population does but for insects, bags, birds and other creatures, its simulates swarms of animals and insects and is a library of different animals that have full animations.

Procedural Alleys

our next generator procedural alleys, can generate corridors, alleys and streets, detailed streets with shops, road cubs, pavements, side walks, street lights, wires, buildings and more, everything is also procedural so you have control over the look of your streets.

Hdri Maker

most artists think of hdri as high dynamic range images that you throw in the background and forget about, but if you have a tool like hdri maker, you can make your hdri feel more integrated into your environment, you can make them be part of the ground, walls, celling and mix them with assets you have in your scene thanks to this addon

Bp Geogen Ultimate Generators Bundle

generators can be anything, and since most projects have different requirements here is a collection of over 50 generators, you get this and there is a chance you will always have a generator to use in any project you start.

Simply Micro Mesh

if you want micro details on your mesh, it can be a complicated process to do, but with this simply micro mesh generator and addon, it can be as easy as a push of a button, and you can even use your own micro meshes if you have.

Simply Cloth Pro

Another generator and addon i cant get over is simply cloth pro, you can generate any type of cloth garment you want from, shirts, trousers, curtains, carpets and more, its also a library of cloth garments if you want something really quick.

Auto Rig & Ragdoll Wizard

there so many more amazing generators but to keep this list shot we are going to end with the auto rig ragdoll wizard before we continue to the last category of blender addons, this ragdoll wizard can generate a rig for any character and add physics to it so that your character can behave as a ragdoll.

Libraries:

this category is simple and straight forward, making 3d assets is hard and takes alot of time, you cant build the world by your self in the realworld, so why would you think it would be any different in the digital 3d world.

Back_Scapes (120 Assets City)

speaking of world building, lets look at backscapes, which is a collection of 3d scanned cities, building and neighborhoods you can just drag and drop into your scenes. this pack contains about 60 assets including cities, isalnds, fields, swamps and more.

Urbaniac! Building Generator V0.25 Early Access

if you prefer hand made models, the urbanic building library is a pack of buildings, streets, roads, highways, industrial assets and more all hand modeled, with high resolution textures and amazing detail for closeup shots

Procedural Building Generator 2

the next library is procedural building generator, yes this is a generator and a library, its a generator that it can generate procedural buildings on any mesh, adding windows, roofs, doors and all the needed detail, its a library in that, there several styles and types of buildings you can choose from to generate.

Real Cloud Generator

stepping away form buildings lets take to the sky with the real cloud vdb library, a collection of realistic clouds you can add to your skys, one complain people usually make about vdb assets like these is that they are heavy and their computers cannot hundle them, this is a settings issue not an asset issue, blender has a setting to reduce the volumetric subdivisions or increase them, more subdivisions require more powerful computers than lower, if your computer is struggling just change your settings.

Geo-Scatter 5.4

if you want trees, grass, vegetation and more, geo scatter is a library of various tree, vegetation and grass species, its also an addon that makes it easy to scatter objects in a more coherent way.

Sanctus Library – Procedural Materials

assets dont have to be meshes or objects, they can be other thing like materials, and sanctus library is the largest collection of procedural materials for blender, it comes with smart masks and blending features to let you easily mix and blender shaders,

Tree And Grass Library Botaniq – Trees

speaking of large libraries, botaniq is up there with the largest collection of trees, plants, grass, vines and everything you will ever need for creating landscapes.